Charles Schwab To Begin Trading Four New ETFs Tomorrow

Tomorrow, November 3rd, Charles Schwab will be listing four new ETFs on the NYSE. The ETFs are as follows: Schwab U.S. Broad Market ETF (SCHB), Schwab U.S. Large-Cap ETF (SCHX), Schwab U.S. Small-Cap ETF (SCHA) and the Schwab International Equity ETF (SCHF). Schwab is in a good position to stake out the new ETF territory. While other money managers felt the pullback caused by economic distress, Schwab brought in $113 billion through brokerage services and funds. Schwab is hosting a press briefing today at Manhattan’s Hilton Hotel in New York to discuss their foray into ETFs. You can find a brief summary of each below.

Schwab U.S. Broad Market ETF (SCHB)

Investment objective

Have you ever wondered how billionaires continue to get RICHER, while the rest of the world is struggling?

"I study billionaires for a living. To be more specific, I study how these investors generate such huge and consistent profits in the stock markets -- year-in and year-out."

The fund’s goal is to track as closely as possible, before fees and expenses, the total return of the Dow Jones U.S. Broad Stock Market Index.

Index

The fund’s benchmark index includes the largest 2,500 publicly traded U.S. companies for which pricing information is readily available. The index is a float-adjusted market capitalization weighted index that reflects the shares of securities actually available to investors in the marketplace. As of June 30, 2009, the index was composed of 2,493 stocks.

Strategy

To pursue its goal, the fund generally invests in stocks that are included in the index. It is the fund’s policy that under normal circumstances it will invest at least 90% of its net assets in these stocks. The fund will notify its shareholders at least 60 days before changing this policy. The fund will generally give the same weight to a given stock as the index does. However, when the Adviser believes it is appropriate to do so, such as to avoid purchasing odd-lots (i.e., purchasing less than the usual number of shares traded for a security), for tax considerations, or to address liquidity considerations with respect to a stock, the Adviser may cause the fund’s weighting of a stock to be more or less than the index’s weighting of the stock. The fund may sell securities that are represented in the index in anticipation of their removal from the index.

Under normal circumstances, the fund may invest up to 10% of its net assets in securities not included in its index. The principal types of these investments include those which the Adviser believes will help the fund track the index, such as investments in (a) securities that are not represented in the index but the Adviser anticipates will be added to the index or as necessary to reflect various corporate actions (such as mergers and spin-offs), (b) other investment companies, and (c) futures contracts, options on futures contracts, options and swaps. The fund may also invest in cash and cash equivalents, and may lend its securities to minimize the difference in performance that naturally exists between an index fund and its corresponding index.

Because it may not be possible or practicable to purchase all of the stocks in the index, the Adviser may seek to track the total return of the index by using statistical sampling techniques. These techniques involve investing in a limited number of index securities which, when taken together, are expected to perform similarly to the index as a whole. These techniques are based on a variety of factors, including performance attributes, tax considerations, capitalization, dividend yield, price/earnings ratio, industry factors, risk factors and other characteristics. The fund generally expects that its portfolio will hold less than the total number of securities in the index, but reserves the right to hold as many securities as it believes necessary to achieve the fund’s investment objective. The fund generally expects that its industry weightings, dividend yield and price/earnings ratio will be similar to those of the index.

The fund will concentrate its investments (i.e., hold 25% or more of its total assets) in a particular industry, group of industries or sector to approximately the same extent that its index is so concentrated. For purposes of this limitation, securities of the U.S. government (including its agencies and instrumentalities), and repurchase agreements collateralized by U.S. government securities are not considered to be issued by members of any industry.

The Adviser seeks to achieve, over time, a correlation between the fund’s performance and that of its index, before fees and expenses, of 95% or better. However, there can be no guarantee that the fund will achieve a high degree of correlation with the index. A number of factors may affect the fund’s ability to achieve a high correlation with its index, including the degree to which the fund utilizes a sampling technique. The correlation between the performance of the fund and its index
may also diverge due to transaction costs, asset valuations, corporate actions (such as mergers and spin-offs), timing variances, and differences between the fund’s portfolio and the index resulting from legal restrictions (such as diversification requirements) that apply to the fund but not to the index.

Schwab U.S. Large-Cap ETF (SCHX)

Investment objective

The fund’s goal is to track as closely as possible, before fees and expenses, the total return of the Dow Jones U.S. Large-Cap Total Stock Market Index.

Index

The fund’s benchmark index includes the large-cap portion of the Dow Jones U.S. Total Stock Market Indexsm actually available to investors in the marketplace. The Dow Jones U.S. Large-Cap Total Stock Market Indexsm includes the components ranked 1-750 by full market capitalization. The index is a float-adjusted market capitalization weighted index. As of June 30, 2009, the index was composed of 743 stocks.

Strategy

To pursue its goal, the fund generally invests in stocks that are included in the index. It is the fund’s policy that under normal circumstances it will invest at least 90% of its net assets in these stocks. The fund will notify its shareholders at least 60 days before changing this policy. The fund will generally give the same weight to a given stock as the index does. However, when the Adviser believes it is appropriate to do so, such as to avoid purchasing odd-lots (i.e., purchasing less than the usual number of shares traded for a security), for tax considerations, or to address liquidity considerations with respect to a stock, the Adviser may cause the fund’s weighting of a stock to be more or less than the index’s weighting of the stock. The fund may sell securities that are represented in the index in anticipation of their removal from the index.

Under normal circumstances, the fund may invest up to 10% of its net assets in securities not included in its index. The principal types of these investments include those which the Adviser believes will help the fund track the index, such as investments in (a) securities that are not represented in the index but the Adviser anticipates will be added to the index or as necessary to reflect various corporate actions (such as mergers and spin-offs), (b) other investment companies, and (c) futures contracts, options on futures contracts, options and swaps. The fund may also invest in cash and cash equivalents, and may lend its securities to minimize the difference in performance that naturally exists between an index fund and its corresponding index.

The fund will concentrate its investments (i.e., hold 25% or more of its total assets) in a particular industry, group of industries or sector to approximately the same extent that its index is so concentrated. For purposes of this limitation, securities of the U.S. government (including its agencies and instrumentalities), and repurchase agreements collateralized by U.S. government securities are not considered to be issued by members of any industry.

The Adviser seeks to achieve, over time, a correlation between the fund’s performance and that of its index, before fees and expenses, of 95% or better. However, there can be no guarantee that the fund will achieve a high degree of correlation with the index. A number of factors may affect the fund’s ability to achieve a high correlation with its index, including the degree to which the fund utilizes a sampling technique. The correlation between the performance of the fund and its index may also diverge due to transaction costs, asset valuations, corporate actions (such as mergers and spin-offs), timing variances, and differences between the fund’s portfolio and the index resulting from legal restrictions (such as diversification requirements) that apply to the fund but not to the index.

Schwab U.S. Small-Cap ETF (SCHA)

Investment objective

The fund’s goal is to track as closely as possible, before fees and expenses, the total return of the Dow Jones U.S. Small-Cap Total Stock Market Index.

Index

The fund’s benchmark index includes the small-cap portion of the Dow Jones U.S. Total Stock Market Indexsm actually available to investors in the marketplace. The Dow Jones U.S. Small-Cap Total Stock Market Indexsm includes the components ranked 751-2500 by full market capitalization. The index is a float-adjusted market capitalization weighted index. As of June 30, 2009, the index was composed of 1,750 stocks.

Strategy

To pursue its goal, the fund generally invests in stocks that are included in the index. It is the fund’s policy that under normal circumstances it will invest at least 90% of its net assets in these stocks. The fund will notify its shareholders at least 60 days before changing this policy. The fund will generally give the same weight to a given stock as the index does. However, when the Adviser believes it is appropriate to do so, such as to avoid purchasing odd-lots (i.e., purchasing less than the usual number of shares traded for a security), for tax considerations, or to address liquidity considerations with respect to a stock, the Adviser may cause the fund’s weighting of a stock to be more or less than the index’s weighting of the stock. The fund may sell securities that are represented in the index in anticipation of their removal from the index.

Under normal circumstances, the fund may invest up to 10% of its net assets in securities not included in its index. The principal types of these investments include those which the Adviser believes will help the fund track the index, such as investments in (a) securities that are not represented in the index but the Adviser anticipates will be added to the index or as necessary to reflect various corporate actions (such as mergers and spin-offs), (b) other investment companies, and (c) futures contracts, options on futures contracts, options and swaps. The fund may also invest in cash and cash equivalents, and may lend its securities to minimize the difference in performance that naturally exists between an index fund and its corresponding index.

Because it may not be possible or practicable to purchase all of the stocks in the index, the Adviser may seek to track the total return of the index by using statistical sampling techniques. These techniques involve investing in a limited number of index securities which, when taken together, are expected to perform similarly to the index as a whole. These techniques are based on a variety of factors, including performance attributes, tax considerations, capitalization, dividend yield, price/earnings ratio, industry factors risk factors and other characteristics. The fund generally expects that its portfolio will hold less than the total number of securities in the index, but reserves the right to hold as many securities as it believes necessary to achieve the fund’s investment objective. The fund generally expects that its industry weightings, dividend yield and price/earnings ratio will be similar to those of the index.

The fund will concentrate its investments (i.e., hold 25% or more of its total assets) in a particular industry, group of industries or sector to approximately the same extent that its index is so concentrated. For purposes of this limitation, securities of the U.S. government (including its agencies and instrumentalities), and repurchase agreements collateralized by U.S. government securities are not considered to be issued by members of any industry.

The Adviser seeks to achieve, over time, a correlation between the fund’s performance and that of its index, before fees and expenses, of 95% or better. However, there can be no guarantee that the fund will achieve a high degree of correlation with the index. A number of factors may affect the fund’s ability to achieve a high correlation with its index, including the
degree to which the fund utilizes a sampling technique. The correlation between the performance of the fund and its index may also diverge due to transaction costs, asset valuations, corporate actions (such as mergers and spin-offs), timing variances, and differences between the fund’s portfolio and the index resulting from legal restrictions (such as diversification requirements) that apply to the fund but not to the index.

Schwab International Equity ETF (SCHF)

Investment objective

The fund’s goal is to track as closely as possible, before fees and expenses, the total return of the FTSE Developed ex-US Index.

Index

The fund’s benchmark index is comprised of large and mid capitalization companies in developed countries outside the United States, as defined by the index provider. The index defines the large and mid capitalization universe as approximately the top 90% of the eligible universe. As of June 30, 2009, the index was composed of 1,325 stocks in 23 developed market countries.

Strategy

To pursue its goal, the fund generally invests in stocks that are included in the index. It is the fund’s policy that under normal circumstances it will invest at least 90% of its net assets in these stocks, including depositary receipts representing securities of the index; which may be in the form of American Depositary receipts (“ADRs”), Global Depositary receipts (“GDRs”) and European Depositary receipts (“EDRs”). The fund will notify its shareholders at least 60 days before changing this policy. The fund will generally give the same weight to a given stock as the index does. However, when the Adviser believes it is appropriate to do so, such as to avoid purchasing odd-lots (i.e., purchasing less than the usual number of shares traded for a security), to address liquidity considerations with respect to a stock, for tax considerations or when purchasing ADRs, GDRs or EDRs in lieu of local securities, the Adviser may cause the fund’s weighting of a stock to be more or less than the index’s weighting of the stock. The fund may sell securities that are represented in the index in anticipation of their removal from the index. The fund does not hedge its exposure to foreign currencies beyond using forward foreign currency contracts to lock in exchange rates for the portfolio securities purchased or sold, but awaiting settlement. These transactions establish a rate of exchange that can be expected to be received upon settlement of the securities.

Under normal circumstances, the fund may invest up to 10% of its net assets in securities not included in its index. The principal types of these investments include those which the Adviser believes will help the fund track the index, such as investments in (a) securities that are not represented in the index but the Adviser anticipates will be added to the index or as necessary to reflect various corporate actions (such as mergers and spin-offs), (b) other investment companies, and (c) forward foreign currency contracts, futures contracts, options on futures contracts, options and swaps. The fund may also invest in cash and cash equivalents, and may lend its securities to minimize the difference in performance that naturally exists between an index fund and its corresponding index.

Because it may not be possible or practicable to purchase all of the stocks in the index, the Adviser seek to track the total return of the index by using statistical sampling techniques. These techniques involve investing in a limited number of index securities which, when taken together, are expected to perform similarly to the index as a whole. These techniques are based on a variety of factors, including performance attributes, tax considerations, country weightings, capitalization, industry factors, risk factors and other characteristics. The fund generally expects that its portfolio will hold less than the total number of securities in the index, but reserves the right to hold as many securities as it believes necessary to achieve the fund’s investment objective.
The fund will concentrate its investments (i.e., hold 25% or more of its total assets) in a particular industry, group of industries or sector to approximately the same extent that its index is so concentrated. For purposes of this limitation, securities of the U.S. government (including its agencies and instrumentalities), and repurchase agreements collateralized by U.S. government securities are not considered to be issued by members of any industry.

The Adviser seeks to achieve, over time, a correlation between the fund’s performance and that of its index, before fees and expenses, of 95% or better. However, there can be no guarantee that the fund will achieve a high degree of correlation with the index. A number of factors may affect the fund’s ability to achieve a high correlation with its index, including the degree to which the fund utilizes a sampling technique. The correlation between the performance of the fund and its index may also diverge due to transaction costs, asset valuations, corporate actions (such as mergers and spin-offs), timing variances, and differences between the fund’s portfolio and the index resulting from legal restrictions (such as diversification requirements) that apply to the fund but not to the index.